


Shoot & Run

by PAPERSK1N



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Arson, Drug Use, Fake AH Crew, Gen, Heists, I don't even know how to tag this, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mentions of alcoholism, Raywood, Robbery, Runaway!AU, Team Lads, Violence, implied michael/gavin, rayvin, sex but not explicit, so much RAYWOOD, sort of GTA, travellers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-16 11:54:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3487325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PAPERSK1N/pseuds/PAPERSK1N
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray is fifteen years, four months and eleven days old when he runs away from home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> don't even ask about Ryan's outfit/hair description(s). I was thinking too hard about 90's Leonardo DiCaprio when i wrote it.
> 
> Kudos & Comments are top<3

Ray is fifteen years, four months and eleven days old when he runs away from home.

He can't think of a reason for it, really, it’s more of a combination of his father’s drinking and the dead look in his mother’s dark eyes, as she sits with a cigarette in her hand, watching the family fall apart. His dad shouts and she listens. She doesn’t react anymore. She doesn’t even look afraid anymore.

Ray packs a duffel bag with some clothes, his Gameboy and twenty dollars and sets out onto the road. The best thing to do, would be to get out of New York all together. Whether or not his parents notice or miss his absence at all, he doesn’t want the chance to turn back. He _can't_ turn back.

He loses the twenty dollars almost immediately, when he sees a little girl, wrapped in a blanket, sitting on the street corner, a small cardboard cup of change in front of her. He wants to walk past her and buy himself something to eat, but fuck it, he’s a sap.

He slips the twenty dollars into her cup, and she gives him a small smile, as if to say thanks. He walks past, and out of the city, heading up to the highway heading south. If he’s gonna go anywhere, it’s going to be warm. The winter in New York had just begun to pick up, and there's snow on the horizon.

He walks until his feet feel bled dry, the rumbling in his stomach almost painful. At least the exercise had warmed up his freezing, petite figure, he thinks, feeling the uncomfortable warmth of sweat under his shirt.

He spots the gas station from forty feet away.

He has no money, he knows that, and the shop is empty, apart from one young female clerk, leafing through a magazine. There aren’t even any cars, and half the pumps are out of order. Ray has never committed a crime before, but _fuck it_ he was so hungry, he’d have to try.

By the time he walks in, there is another person in the store. He looks like he could be twenty, or even older, in an oddly bright button down, short sleeved shirt- completely contrasting with the bleak outlook of the city in the winter, with a faded pair of denim jeans. His hair is a light brown colour, and limply frames his face, and there is the slightest scar at his Adams apple.

He is beautiful.

But then, Ray is too hungry to appreciate any kind of beauty. He eyes the candy bars at the counter and feels his mouth water. As the man walks to the counter to pay for a stick of gum, Ray takes his chance.

His hands are shaking as he reaches forwards for the candy bar, before tucking it into the pocket of his hoodie. For a second, he feels relief. He’s committed his first crime, at the tender age of fifteen, and he's _gotten away with it._

“Excuse me, what do you think you're doing?” The clerk asks.

Total destruction of courage commencing in 3, 2…

“It’s okay.” Says the boy in the shirt. His eyes bare into Ray curiously. “He’s with me.”

Ray swallows thickly as the man pays for his candy bar, walks out the store, and nods for Ray to follow. As Ray trails behind, the man stops looking like a _man_ and more like a boy. He can't be older than twenty-one, Ray thinks, as the boy walks to a beat up faded red Chevrolet Corvair.

He gestures for Ray to sit in the passenger seat. Ray’s sneaker-clad feet are stuck to the ground. The boy winds down the window, and the deepness of his voice only contrasts with the youth of his defined cheekbones and bright blue eyes.

“I just saved your ass, get in the car.”

Ray gulps, again, before walking over to the car. The rust on the handle creaks as he tries to open it. He’s been walking for so long, and he’s so _tired_ , he can't even muster up the strength to yank at the handle. The boy inside reaches over, opening the door from the inside. Ray gets in, sitting beside him.

Are you sure you want to erase _file.strangerdanger_?

The door creaks shut after he gets in. The boy looks at him; asks what his name is.

 “Ray. Ray Narvaez Jr.” he curses his father for giving his name over to him, cementing his place as the one bug-stain on the windscreen of Ray’s life that no water jet will ever be able to get rid of.

Ryan asks for his age, and Ray replies, truthfully, that he’s fifteen years old.

The boy smiles. “Nice to meet you, Ray. I’m Ryan.”

Ray nods. “How old are you?”

Ryan is nineteen. The way he speaks, makes him sound confident. Ray can also see this confidence by the way Ryan leans against his seat so casually, one arm rested by the window like a trucker, the other on the wheel of a car that Ray doesn’t think is really his, as he puts pressure on the peddle and drives them out of the gas station.

Ryan asks, “You a runaway?”

Ray nods.

Ryan thought so. He knows the look, apparently.

“Scared out of your wits, unsure where to go; what to do. You’re unaware of the next step in your grand scheme. Trust me, it takes one to know one.” They pull onto the highway, and Ray is just thankful the battered roof is still up as sleet begins to fall from the sky. The car creaks and groans, and the check engine light blares in a way that can't be safe, as Ryan applies more pressure to the pedal, and the speedometer turns.

Ryan asks where he is headed. Ray shrugs his shoulders. He’s unsure, Ryan can see that. South, he says. Somewhere warm.

Ryan smiles. “What a… coincidence. I’m heading south-side too. You can ride with me for a while, I guess.”

“Really?”

Ryan shrugs. “I guess a little company can be nice. Only for a night, then you're on your own. Can't have you holding me back.”

Ray suddenly feels brave. “Two nights?” he tries.

Ryan turns to him and smirks. “Alright, a week. _Then_ you really are on your own.”

Ryan has a slight southern tone to his accent that Ray picks up on immediately. They drive for ten minutes in silence, before Ryan slips a cassette into the player, and rock music plays quietly.

They silent drive continued for another few hours, until Ryan pulls into the driveway of a small house. He gets out of the car and Ray follows, as another boy runs up to them, shaking Ryan’s hand and patting him on the back, before skipping out.

Ryan says, “Come on.” And nods to the house.

The house is small, and smells like weed and subtly, urine. Ryan mumbles, “You can have the bed.” Before flopping down on the couch, and falling to sleep immediately.

Ray struggles with sleeping a little more. He tosses and turns most of the night on the uncomfortable mattress, blanket cast to the floor after he spots four suspicious stains before he even has a chance to cover himself with it. It’s cold, and he doubts the house has central heating even more than he doubts his ability to get up and ask Ryan to turn it on.

He falls asleep to the thought of Ryan’s eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

Ryan laughs at him. “Don’t go back.” They’ve been staying in the house for a week. A week longer than planned.

Ray asks if Ryan is going to leave him alone. Ryan shrugs, but says he likes having Ray around.

“They might be looking for me.” Ray shrugs, stuffing his clothes back into his bag. Ryan laughs.

“Parents, they’re bullshit. Fuck mine, fuck yours, and fuck everybody’s. You don’t need parents to survive. The only thing you need, is yourself.” He steps forward as he speaks, each fragmented sentence punctuated with his finger, prodding into Ray’s chest, right over his heart.

_Is it wrong to love a demon_

_who was once an a n g e l ?_

Ryan hates his parents, Ray quickly learns on the second stretch of their journey. Ryan hates the government, and he hates the unfairness of their world. Ryan smokes cigarettes every day. Ryan brushes his hair thirty times before he goes to sleep. Ryan has a scar on his right shoulder blade from his father, Ryan’s Chevrolet _is_ stolen, and he reminds Ray to remind him to ditch it soon.

Maybe they’ll torch it, he says, with an unnerving glint of excitement in his cold, clear eyes.

“My parents, they wanted me to be someone who I wasn’t… so I left.” He says cryptically. He doesn’t go into any more detail than that. Ray doesn’t ask.

Ray tells Ryan _everything_. Ryan asks questions for every detail, really wanting to get a clear picture of Ray’s shitty home life. Ray asks Ryan no questions, because he is honestly too afraid of the answers he may receive.

One week turns to two, and two turns to a month. They drive, every day. Some days they stop at a house or an apartment. They’ll either stay for a night or they’ll stay for weeks. There is no in-between.

One month turns to six, and Ray feels like he knows even less about Ryan than he ever had done to begin with. Ray is fifteen years, ten months and four days when he smokes a cigarette for the first time. He doesn’t like it, but Ryan is clearly amused, so he grits his teeth and bares it.

Ryan’s father didn't go to college, so it was really important that Ryan had to go.

Ray doesn’t ask how Ryan gets the money he has for gas and for food and petty purchases. He doesn’t question why sometimes, Ryan leaves the house in the dead of the night and returns with bruises.

He stupidly thinks that he’ll be safer in his own ignorance.

One night, he wakes up, ten minutes to midnight.

It’s his birthday.

The minutes tick over, and suddenly, it isn’t his birthday anymore.

He whispers Ryan’s name into the darkness.

“What?”

“Yesterday was my birthday.”

Ryan rolls back onto his side. “Okay.”

Ray falls back to sleep.

He wakes up back in the passenger seat of their second car, this one a disgusting brown station wagon with a tail light out and a wonky number-plate. How they are never stopped by the cops, Ray will never know.

Their previous car dies with a tick of the engine, as fires blaze around and inside of it, warmth hitting Ray’s face and reflecting light into his glasses. Ryan stands beside him, and laughs.

Ray joins in.

He wakes up in West Virginia on an empty road driving through a city that looks like it is made of cardboard. All the buildings are brown , and the brick walls of what must be a park are scratched with graffiti.

Street art is the salvation of the youth.

They stay in the cardboard city for a night. Ray is sixteen years and twelve days old when Ryan takes him into a club for the first time. How either of them got in, he isn’t sure, but it sure had something to do with Ryan’s cocky grin and the slight nod of the club bodyguard.

Sitting on the floor at the corner of the club as Ryan charms his way into a free drink, the lights and music washing over Ray like a brutal wave of suffocation; Ray wonders if his parents miss him.

Ryan finds him, holds his face and presses their foreheads together. He talks, but Ray can no longer hear him. He scoops Ray into his arms, runs out the club with several wallets that Ray knows don’t belong to Ryan in his back pocket.

Ray is sixteen years and twelve days old when he smokes weed for the first time, sitting opposite Ryan on the shitty motel bed they’re sharing, unable to tear his eyes away from Ryan’s own.

Instead of suffocation, he feels like he’s floating. He’s invincible, yet docile. Nothing can touch him, nothing but _Ryan_ , the almost-twenty year old sitting opposite him with the same dopey grin.

They don’t call it the miracle drug for nothing.

 

Ray considers himself almost seventeen when Ryan teaches him a quick way of making money. He can stomach the bars and the clubs with a quick joint before and afterwards, he’s learnt.

He pick-pockets strangers and flirts his way into wallets and handbags, like Ryan has taught him. He doesn’t have the same boyish charm that Ryan has, the kind that makes the girls fan their faces and smirk, but he’s got the older, burlier men on lock, each of them wanting a chance to run their fingers through Ray’s silky black hair and rest their thumb on his lip.

If they’re particularly nice, Ray will let his tongue dart out and swirl around the dirty head of a dirty strangers dirty thumb, and smile whilst he does it. Ryan watches from the side, and scowls.

Ryan thinks alcohol is overrated, so neither of them ever worry about being drunk. They get high regularly enough, weed never being hard to come by, but go no further than that. Ryan doesn’t like losing control of himself, or much else.

The summer before Ray turns seventeen, Ryan drives him to a gas station.

Ryan says, “Remember, when we first met?” Ray nods. He’ll always remember. How could he ever forget?

“You tried to steal a candy bar, and you got caught.” Ryan reminds him.

Ray nods. He remembers, of course he remembers. He was young and stupid and too caught up in his parents lives, not yet living his own.

“So,” Ryan continues. “You didn't get me anything for my birthday last year, so how’s about you make it up to me?” he smirks, and Ray’s heart drops.

He’s done so much since being that naïve kid who almost got caught, but the simple action of going into a gas station and committing a petty crime suddenly scares him. That and the faith he can see Ryan has for him. Ryan believes he can do this.

“You never asked for anything.” He mutters, before climbing out of the car.

 Ryan’s hair is softer than anything Ray’s ever felt. It’s long, hanging around his ears. He never gets it cut, and sometimes, just to please Ray, he’ll tie it up in a little topknot. Ray knows that Ryan secretly likes it, and on the day of Ray’s seventeenth birthday, Ryan lets him get the electric razor, and shave away the bottom. Ray lines him up like an expert, and the top half of Ryan’s hair is released, knot hanging limply at the back.

Ryan smiles, and says actually, he kind of likes it.

“Really?” he asks with a grin. “A candy bar?”

“Making up for my mistakes.” Ray says. He hands the candy over to Ryan. “Happy birthday.”

Ryan peels the rapper, and breaks the bar in half, handing one side to Ray.

Ryan’s mother used to sew his name into his shirts, and one day, Ray catches it on the inside collar of a t-shirt. Ryan snatches it away immediately. Ray doesn’t ask. He knows enough about how painful it is to rip up the past.

Ray is seventeen years and eight months old when he shoots a gun for the first time.

It’s probably the biggest crime they’ve ever taken on together, but then they're running short on money and places to stay, so Ray agrees to wait in the car park as Ryan runs in with a gun and a skull mask.

He runs out fifteen minutes later with a bag of money and a wicked grin. He pulls the skull mask up over his face, and tosses the gun into Ray’s lap.

“Saftey’s off." he says "I'll drive, you shoot."

Ray has never fired a gun before, and honestly, never thought he’d have to. The faint wail of sirens grows nearer, and with shaking fingers he winds down the passenger window. Ryan is swerving and gliding across the roads, and Ray’s grown a little too attached to their car to let it become impounded, following their arrest.

So, after taking a deep, calming breath, Ray hangs himself out of the window and opens fire.

“You got hit.” Ray says, as they walk away together from the second car they'd torched. He looks at the blood on Ryan’s shoulder.

“Just a graze.” Ryan says.

Ray learns on the days leading up to his sixteenth birthday, that Ryan’s favourite animal is a cow, and his favourite food, coincidentally is steak.

Over a year later, after the convenience store incident, followed by a car chase and the second torching of their second car, Ray wonders if it ever really was a coincidence.

They continue walking down the highway until Ray’s feet ache and he can’t feel his legs anymore. Ryan lifts him up, and carries him on his back, soldiering on.

They walk and they walk, until they meet Jack.

Jack Pattillo, he says his name is. You kids look hungry. You kids look tired.

You kids look like you’ve been through _hell_ and back.

Ryan is reluctant but Ray needs to rest, so he accepts the southern strangers offer, slipping into the back of Jack’s truck. Jack owns a ranch-house, just outside of the city. Jack owns a fifteen year old pick-up truck that somehow runs as smooth as a Mercedes Benz.

And most importantly; Jack doesn’t ask questions.

“Believe me, kids, I’ve said and done a lot of stupid stuff that I probably shouldn’t've.” is the only glimpse Ryan and Ray get into his actual life. He gives them a (double) bed to sleep in, and Ray spends the next two nights curled into Ryan, sleeping probably as soundly as he ever has done since leaving home.

On the third night, Ray is awoken by Ryan, whispering in his ear to get up, get dressed.

They're leaving.

They leave with their few belongings, $500 dollars that Ryan found underneath a paper weight, and Jack’s pickup truck. Ray doesn’t want to go, it isn’t fair, he says. Jack is a good guy. Jack doesn’t ask questions.

Never stay with a stranger, is Ryan’s excuse.

“I stayed with you.” Ray reminds him. Ryan sighs, looks to the ground, looks outside, looks to the ceiling. He looks anywhere but Ray’s wide, brown eyes.

Before he knows it, Ray is in the passenger seat of Jack’s pickup truck, warm, southern air blowing through his hair as they drive through the winter, and into the spring.

“Where are we even going?” he asks. Ryan lights a cigarette with a zippo lighter he finds on the dashboard, Jack’s name and a short message engraved onto the side.

“We’re going to the big city. Los Santos. I’ve got a friend there who’ll hold us up for a while.”

_To Jack, with Love, G_

Ray somehow learns to drive on the way. He’s seventeen now, and although he doesn’t have a licence, he obeys the speed limits and nobody asks questions. Ray has never actually seen Ryan’s driving licence.

He and Ryan take turns, driving in shifts, one sleeping in the passenger seat. Some nights, when the haul is too long, they’ll pull into a parking lot or a side alley, lean back into the leather seats and fall asleep together.

Some nights, as a treat, Ryan will drive them into an empty field. Together they’ll sit, looking through the windscreen, and up at the stars. Ray doesn’t tell Ryan that those are his favourite nights. Ray doesn’t tell Ryan that he’s brighter than any star in the sky.

Ryan knows a lot about astrology, Ray quickly realises. Ryan’s dad never went to college, but he sure did know a lot about stars. Ryan shows him he countless constellations, tracing them with his finger. Ray sees nothing but a cluster of white dots, but plays along anyway, just to see the starlight reflect in Ryan’s eyes.

Its weeks of constant driving, with a side order of cheap takeout food and stargazing sessions, but eventually, they make it to Los Santos. Ray hasn’t been into a major city since New York, but it quickly becomes clear that the two are nothing alike. Ray is introduced to Geoff and Griffon in a bar, and for once, doesn’t feel intimidated.

They both have countless tattoos littering their arms and legs. Griffon has a ring through her nose and Geoff has several in his ear. Ray has never been a fan of either, but he can make an exception because it is disgustingly obvious that Geoff and Griffon are _beautiful_ people.

They’re good people too, Ray learns when Ryan takes his hand and brings him to their room in Geoff and Griffons city apartment. Ray doesn’t comment on the fact that they have to share a bed again. He’s been sharing his entire life with Ryan since he was fifteen years old, this is nothing new.

Until it is.

There's something different about the way Ryan holds him now. When they sleep, Ryan’s arms are either around his waist or in his hair. Ryan has never been a very emotional person, but he clings to Ray like a dying man to water, and it’s _nice_.

It’s nice to feel _loved_.

The night before his eighteenth birthday, Ryan disappears, as he often does into the night. Geoff often goes with him, and Ray only watches as Ryan drags his skull mask out of the room. He usually spends those nights playing on the Xbox with Griffon, the pair of them clearly distracting themselves from the unspoken truth of the situation.

But this night is different.

Ryan returns when Ray is already in bed, half asleep with blurry vision as Ryan creeps into the room and shakes him awake. Ryan has a duffel bag in his hand which he tosses down onto the bed. Silently, he unzips it, and Ray gasps.

He doesn’t need his glasses on to see what’s inside.

"How much?" He asks.

"One hundred thousand." Ryan's eyes are wild and shining and his grin is manic as he whisper-yells, "One hundred thousand fucking dollars, baby, we’re rich!"

Something warms in Ray’s heart when Ryan calls him _baby_.

Ryan surprises him with keys to an apartment. It isn’t really his, he explains, they can't afford that yet. They’re simply upper class squatters, living in the penthouse suite of a rich businessman who spends eleven months of the year in New York.

They leave Geoff and Griffon’s place, but the couple are over often enough, sitting on the giant leather couch that isn’t theirs, and they play on the Xbox that is. Ryan buys Ray _everything_ , nothing is too expensive. He goes out during the nights more and more, but Ray has learnt, quickly to never ask questions.

Ray is eighteen years, three months and six days old when he kisses Ryan for the first time. They celebrate Ryan’s twenty second birthday the only way they really know, by driving Jack’s pickup truck into the rocky mountains at the edge of Los Santos to look up at the stars.

Ray pulls a few fireworks out of his bag, and shoots them off into the sky. Ryan laughs, before grabbing his chin gently, tilting his head up, and kissing him on the lips.

It’s Ray’s first kiss, but Ryan already knows that.

Ray is eighteen years, five months and seven days when he meets Gavin Free for the first time, in a bar. Gavin is him, from a year ago, really, flirting with E-list celebrities and businessmen and women alike, taking free drinks (but actually drinking them) and expensive wallets (that he almost always keeps for himself).

Ray is eighteen years, five months and ten days old when he has his second ever kiss, and does cocaine for the first time, all in one night.

All Gavin has to do is show up at the apartment with a few grams and a smile and Ray is immediately enchanted.

Ryan is more than sulky when he enters the apartment at four o’clock in the morning to find the two, shirtless, laying on the sofa, snoring together. Ray has never been good at reading faces, but he knows Ryan better than anyone, so he can instantly tell he's pissed.

I’m fine, Ryan says. There's no problem. I love Gavin. Michael too, he's great. They can come over any time they want.

To spite his pissy boyfriend(?) lover(?) partner (?) _Ryan_ … he continues to hang out with Michael and Gavin. They have a lot in common, the three of them, from video games to favourite foods. Michael and Gavin are good friends with Geoff and Griffon, and don’t really have a place to stay. They truly are the Ryan and Ray of the past, crashing in Geoff’s spare room because they have nowhere else to go, pick pocketing whoever they can and (occasionally) trading sexual favours for money.

Gavin’s gag reflex is terrible, but apparently, for a blow job, he can move past it.

Ray wouldn’t know. He’s never given a blow job.

Gavin is very open about everything, from his last sexual experience to the last shit he took. He has no shame, nothing to hide. His eyes are always wide and his skin is always flaky, probably from the drugs that he can't stop taking.

Michael is always covered in bruises that Ray doesn’t ask about, and is essentially Gavin's anchor, keeping him from floating away. Gavin is like a stray animal, content to take rest on the doorstep of whoever is offering for the night. Michael is the only things grounding him in one place.

Ryan is _jealous_.

It all comes down to the fact that since Ray went out and made friends, he doesn’t have the same amount of time and investment in Ryan anymore. Ryan is needy, a lot of people don’t realise, having become so used to being on his own to suddenly having Ray with him 24/7. He loves Ray, completely and unconditionally. He’s jealous, because he cares.

Nah, Ray replies. You're just an asshole.

He doesn’t expect Ryan to actually walk out on him.

Ray asks him, as Ryan lingers by the door with his hands tucked into the pocket of his leather jacket, “What are we?”

Ryan looks from Ray’s eyes, to the floor. He doesn’t answer the question, and instead, leaves the apartment, leaving Ray really and truly, for the first time in _three years_ , alone.

It lasts for two days.

Two days of crying into Gavin’s chest and two days of playing Xbox with Michael. Smoking dope until he can't see the controller properly anymore. He has a thousand first experiences in two days, Gavin more than happy to supply him any drug he needs. Michael gives him a different kind of rush, and Ray has his first ever fist fight.

And on the second night, Ray has the closest thing he’s ever had to a sexual experience. They don’t touch, that’s the deal after the kiss he shares with Gavin, and then Michael, but he does watch.

Ray has never though himself a particularly _kinky_ person, but he enjoys himself more than he thinks he ever would, watching Gavin and Michael roll around on the expensive fur carpet together, clothes discarded into a messy pile.

When they're finished, they simply collect their things and leave. Gavin kisses Ray on the cheek, and Michael’s fingers brush past his bruised knuckles. They’re thankful, they say. They're thankful to be the ones who give Ray his first experience.

Ryan returns, after two nights and half a third day. His apology, a pretty pink sniper rifle and a bright purple hoodie with the softest inside layer Ray has ever felt.

He seals the deal with a kiss to Ray’s nose, and then to his lips.

Ray is the one who takes it that step further that he knows, by now, it _needs_ to go. It has never been a sexual thing, between them. Over the years of sharing beds and personal space, there has only ever been _intimacy_ , over contact, but after witnessing the performance put on my Gavin and Michael, Ray suddenly _craves_ the feel of Ryan’s large hands all over his body.

Ryan is gentle with him, as he always had been, and by the end of it, Ray sees stars. Not the same kind that you can look at from the top of Mount. Chilliad, though. These stars exist in a completely different universe.


	2. Part Two

_Part Two_

 

 

 

They haven’t seen Geoff in what feels like an age. They’ve really been spending the last few weeks between their bed and their kitchen, rolling around between the sheets and making snacks, with little break for anything else other than a quick round of Halo, before they're back in the cycle.

Geoff takes them out to a little bar in a corner of Los Santos. It isn’t overly busy, and is easy for them to get a small booth in the corner, and a round consisting of one whisky and two cans of Dr Pepper.

After an hour or so of small talk and joking around, Ryan asks, “Ray, can you give me and Geoff a minute?”

Ray shrugs, and Ryan kisses him on the side of the face, almost as if to say _it’s okay, it’s nothing to worry about_ as Ray slips out of the booth, heading over to the bar.

“So,” Ryan says, as he and Geoff watch Ray walk away and sit up at the bar.

"So what?” Geoff asks, downing the rest of his whisky.

“So what d’ya think of him?”

Geoff smirks. “He’s a good kid… much too good for you.”

Ryan frowns. “What the fuck's that supposed to mean?”

“Whoa, don’t get so defensive,” Geoff laughs. “Fun fact about you, Ryan… you fuck up _everything_ you touch. And sooner or later, you’ll fuck him up just the same.”

Ryan clenches his fist at the table. “Nah,” he shakes his head. “I won't fuck up this time. I’m keeping this one, he’s _mine._ ”

Geoff laughs again. “You really think that?” he asks.

“Absolutely,” Ryan says. “No asshole’s ever going to take him away from me.”

Geoff’s eyes skim over to the bar, where Ray sits. A man stands beside him, with a cheap suit and a cheaper smile, handing Ray a glass. His eyes drink Ray in, and Geoff can’t blame the man. Ray’s pretty, that’s for sure. The perfect _boy_ for a one-night-stand behind your wife’s back.

“Looks like some asshole already is.” He smirks. Ryan’s eyes flit over to the bar, and immediately, he frowns. Geoff looks over at him, concerned when he sees the familiar thunderous look in Ryan’s eye. He’s about to say something, before it’s too late, but Ryan is already up, storming over to the bar.

He doesn’t even speak, before decking the guy right in his greasy, corporate face.

Needless to say, they’re kicked out of that bar pretty quickly. Ryan’s got blood on his knuckles and the guy got one good hit under his eye, which Ray has to clean for him.

You shouldn’t have done that, Ray says. It wasn’t necessary. You could’ve really hurt that guy.

Ryan smirks. Yes, he says. Yes it was.

Ray is nineteen years old when the idea of the Fake AH Crew forms.

It’s a Thursday night, and for the first time in a while _everyone_ is there, drinking and smoking and playing video games. The five of them, (Geoff, Michael, Gavin, Ray and Ryan) get on like a house on fire, and the conversation flows almost as easy as the beer does down the first three’s throats. Ray sips his malta and Ryan makes his way through an obscene amount of Diet Coke, and soon Geoff can barely slur the words, “ _We should start a crew_.”

Yeah Geoff, we should start a crew. Sure buddy. Why not pal. Rob banks? Yeah Geoff, we could do that, easily. Of course we should, great idea.

But then it’s a month later and Geoff’s already got the tattoo on the top half of his sleeve cementing the crew name and they’re introduced to Jack Pattilo, who owns a ranch house and doesn’t ask questions and is suspiciously lacking a pick-up truck.

“Sorry about that.” It's the first time Ray's seen Ryan swallow his pride.

“It’s fine. I would’ve done the same.”

All that Ray can think is that he and Ryan are ridiculously lucky that Jack is a forgiving person. They're also lucky that Jack knows everything about everyone in the city, and lets them know that the businessman they’ve borrowed their home from is planning a trip back with his second mistress in the next few weeks.

It doesn’t take them long to pack their stuff, no matter how lived in the apartment is because Ryan has always taught Ray to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. The last thing they need is an angry corporate jack-ass with a team of clever lawyers.

Apart from that, Ray and Ryan don’t fear any authority. The police are nothing but easy to skit around, considering they’ve been living on the boundaries of the law for so long, that acting legally feels odd.

The LSPD are maybe the easiest police force to avoid even considering how crime-heavy the city is. There is always someone else more important that the two of them, always another person to chase after. Even with the idea of the crew, Ray isn’t afraid- because it’s not like they're going to become national news, right?

* * *

 

Ray is nineteen years, six months and two days old when he has his closest call with the cops to date.

The jewellery snatch with he and Michael was a bad idea from the start. The small heists they'd pulled off before this one had all had the same structure, of Ryan, Ray and Michael creating cover, Geoff and Gavin doing the legwork and Jack driving the getaway vehicle. It had worked, enough, each time.

This time, Geoff wanted things to be a little different.

When it came to actually committing crime, sure, he and Michael along with Ryan were probably the most competent of the group. If anything, the robbery should’ve gone smoothly, with a hefty cut into Ryan and Ray’s shared pot for all their hard work.

But then, things rarely went as planned for the Fake AH Crew.

Ray manages to run, but has to watch from an alleyway as Michael is cuffed and punched and shoved into a police car, kicking and screaming with blood dripping from his nose in the only way Michael can to bide them time. As the doors are slammed shut, Ray thinks he can make out Michael’s thunderous expression through the tinted windows.

Back at Michael’s apartment, Gavin cries all night, face buried into Geoff’s shoulder as Jack paces the room, making calls and trying to smooth over legal details. Ray watches from the hallway, unable to face any of them.

He is even frosty to Ryan, who keeps insisting that it isn’t his fault. It is an odd feeling, because Ryan has never lied to him before.

Geoff is the man with the money who funds their ill-planned schemes, and four favours, three removed witnesses and fifty thousand dollars later Michael is released, with a split lip and a black eye and a wild smile lighting up his bright eyes.

He doesn’t even have to say a word for Ray to know that he is forgiven.

To cheer him up, Ryan takes Ray out to the pier. It’s supposed to be a nice walk, a trip to the carnival and some tooth rotting candyfloss, but they know their reputation, and soon enough a cars blown up and Ray’s running with a hamburger shaped umbrella, shielding himself from the sparks and rubble raining down from the sky. Ryan just laughs, before slipping his skull mask on over his face and sprinting down the pier. Ray isn’t as fast, but Ryan waits for him. In the blink of an eye, the two are gone, nothing left but the tyre tracks on the floor and the charred remains of the hamburger umbrella.

Ryan rips off his mask so the wind can blow through his hair, and Ray clutches his arms tightly around his waist, laughing loudly the entire time.

Ray is twenty years old when the first full-blown, planned for months with maps and sharpies and lines of string heist occurs. Geoff leads them, of course, with a black bow tie tightly around his neck, and only the spider webs of tattoos across his hands peeking out under his suit jacket.

All in all, it doesn’t go exactly well, but nobody dies. They lose half the money at the bottom of the ocean during the escape and Michael shoots Jack in the shoulder within the first five minutes. Gavin gets grazed by a bullet across his thigh, but the worse injury is the gash up his arm, from tripping over a fence.

Ray and Geoff and Ryan are the only ones who appear to be fine, but once they get back inside their hotel room, it’s clear to Ray that Ryan isn’t as okay as he had initially made himself out to be. He sits Ryan down on the bed and slips off his jacket gently.

There’s a lot more blood than Ray expects, and the scent hits his nostrils immediately, making him shield his face briefly with his arm. However, he grits his teeth and bares it, pulling out a first aid kit and doing his best to patch Ryan up. Thankfully, the bullet has gone straight through, so a lot of alcohol and a few stiches later, Ryan is okay. Ray rolls him a joint to help with the pain, and Ryan laughs.

“Seriously though, don’t hide this shit from me Ry,” Ray says. “Never again.”

Ryan can see the seriousness in Ray’s eyes as much as he can feel it in his voice. He takes Ray by the wrist and pulls him down, so he sits straddling Ryan’s lap.

I won't. I'll never hide anything from you again. I love you. You are my everything.

Three heists later and they're more than experienced. Michael still makes snap decisions and Gavin's still trips over himself. Geoff drinks too much and Jack’s a stickler for detail, but all in all the heists go well and Ray and Ryan quickly find themselves swimming in more money than they know what to do with. Ryan promises him they’ll buy an apartment and stop flitting from hotel rooms and crashing in Geoff’s new giant home, but Ray can't lie and say he doesn’t enjoy it.

"We don’t need a home." Ray says. "Home is with you."

“Do you ever… miss how things were before?” Ryan asks. “When it was just the two of us, out on the road in a shitty Chevrolet?”

Ray shrugs. “Sometimes.” He admits, glancing through their open bedroom door, down the corridor to where he can hear the rest of the crew laughing and talking. Griffon had made them all fancy drinks with slices of fruit and mint and a lot of alcohol, and it’s clear to see they're all drunk.

Ryan catches Ray’s gaze, following it out to the corridor.

“We could leave.” He says.

Ray looks across the room, to a framed photo that hangs on the wall. The six of them, standing in Geoff’s living room, before a heist. Gavin in his idiotic six thousand dollar sunglasses and Michael in his beaten up brown leather jacket. Geoff wearing a tux and Jack in not the most awful Hawaiian shirt he owns. And then Ryan and Ray, not on the end awkwardly, but in the middle, Gavin’s face pressed next to Ray’s and Geoff’s hand on Ryan’s shoulder. It's clear as day, and undeniable fact that they fit in.

They _belong._

“Nah,” Ray decides, shaking his head. “We really couldn’t.”

Ray is twenty one years and four months old when he is shot for the first time, straight through the arm. The blood is _everywhere_ , all over his favourite hoodie, as well as staining the white bed sheets. He’s never seen so much in one place before, this is different than Ryan’s injuries. This is _worse._

He can feel himself panicking as his breaths grow shallow but he can also hear Ryan’s voice, anxiously soothing him as Jack hovers in front of him, the rest of the crew around him. He cries like a bitch, because he isn’t really sure what else to do.

_Am I okay? Am I gonna be okay? Oh shit, I’m not gonna die, am I Jack? God, please Jack, I don’t want to die. Jack? It hurts, Jack, oh God Jack please just make it fucking stop-_

Unsurprisingly he doesn’t die. Ray learns that alcohol can be good for something, because although it still stings a little, Ray is thankful in the following hours that his arm won't turn septic. Ryan lays with him, holding him tightly round the middle all through the night.

Ryan says, “You scared me, baby. You wouldn’t stop crying and you were bleeding everywhere. Please don’t ever get seriously hurt. I don’t know if I could go on without you.”

Ryan’s words usually make the hurt go away, but this time, Ray just feels his heart clench. He can't lie there, in the dark and the silence and pretend his relationship with Ryan is anywhere near normal, and he can't pretend that Ryan doesn’t scare the shit out of him at times.

Ryan Haywood, the anti-establishment nineteen year old with the red Chevrolet and the beautiful hair that took him in, taught him to drive and taught him to smoke. Gave him his first kiss and took his virginity. Gave him a penthouse suite and a thousand Xbox games. Gave him everything he could, and never asked for anything in return.

Ryan was one of the good guys, in Ray’s life, that was for sure- but that didn't mean that outside of that, he wasn’t one of the bad guys.

It’s barely two months later when Ryan pushes it too far.

They’re in a shitty bar and it’s Gavin's idea (it’s _always_ Gavin’s idea) to get drunk and play stupid games. Gavin dares him to get the number of the guy in the suit at the bar. Ray doesn’t want to play but Gavin is drunk and insatiable, so Ray sighs, and moves over to the bar, sitting next to the guy.

For a second, he thinks of the times he would spend in bars, letting burly men pet him for free drinks and pickpocketing opportunities whilst Ryan would stand by the wall and simmer in his own rage.

He glances in Ryan’s direction, and thankfully, he’s distracted by Geoff, moving his hands and clutching his glass like he’s explaining something, and Ray smiles, watching him. then he sees Gavin and Michael grinning dumbly at him and drunkenly giggling as the guy in the standard suit with the standard hair-cut holding the standard glass of scotch watches him, drinking him in and smirking. Ray rolls his eyes.

“Alright then, you gonna buy me a drink or what?”

Ray suffers through a light beer and listens to the suit talk about himself, bragging about his high paid job and his high cost apartment. Ray feigns interest, nodding when he should, batting his eyelashes and laughing in all the right places, because that’s how he’s always done it. It’s barely been six or seven minutes of small talks and lingering glances when there’s a fist in the guy’s face and blood on Ryan’s knuckles, splattering on the bar floor.

Ryan is seething, panting with blood dripping from his hands, as the guy cowers on the floor. Ray grabs at his arm, tries to calm him, but Ryan pulls away, glaring down at the man. Geoff runs over and escorts them quickly out of the bar, not keen to make a scene.

“I swear to God Ryan, I don’t want to see you until you can to start acting sane again.” Is Geoff’s warning, before he grabs a stumbling Gavin by the ear, Jack and Michael lagging behind him, walking off into the night.

Ryan barely glances at Ray as the suit stumbles out of the bar, briefcase in hand.

It all happens too fast, and Ray can't do anything, standing frozen to the spot as Ryan goes in for round two, dragging the guy out to the alley down the side of the bar wailing into his face until it is an unrecognizable mess of blood and pulp and tears and spit. Blood splatters across Ryan’s face as he gives the final blow, and the man slinks to the ground.

_“Ryan. Stop!”_

But it’s too late. Ray doesn’t have to take a second look to know the guy is more than dead, and gags, leaning against the wall for support as he doubles over, vomiting back up the single half beer onto a cardboard box.

“I… Ray, I- I didn't mean to-” Ray straightens, fixing his glasses and looking to Ryan, who stands over the corpse with blood on his hands and face, eyes widr with horror as he looks down at the beaten, broken body of a man whose name he didn't even know. “-I didn't know I was going to… I didn't think I was-” he stops again, and looks up, locking eyes with Ray, whose expression is nothing short of pure terror and distrust. “I… oh God, Ray- can… can you forgive me?”

Ray makes his decision as he turns and runs, just as it starts to rain, sprinting away from Ryan and all the way back to Michael’s apartment.

* * *

**  
**

Ryan isn’t seen for six months after that.

The world continues to spin, apparently, even if you’ve had your other half ripped out of your side. Apparently, he doesn’t need to Ryan to survive, but that doesn’t change how much it _fucking hurts_. For the first few weeks he doesn’t move from Michael’s bed, sometimes sharing with Michael and sometimes with Gavin. Some nights, when he’s been crying for so long that he can't push liquid tears out, they’ll both lie with him, one on either side, gently cuddling him and stroking his face and whispering that it’s okay, Ryan will come back.

_(You’ll see Ray, he’s throwing a tantrum. He’ll be back, and think of how silly you’ll feel.)_

But Ryan doesn’t come back like Michael and Gavin say he will. It isn’t like the last time Ryan left, he doesn’t just return a few days later with a few presents and warm, all-encompassing arms for cuddles and happy sex.

After a while, when Ray forgets how to even _feel_ sad, he moves out of Michael and Gavin’s place. He shows up for the occasional heist, but stays quiet and avoids the crew for most of the time. That doesn’t stop Gavin showing up at his new apartment often enough for games and coke and it sure doesn't stop Michael from coming over for fights, both virtual and real.

He goes out to troll bars and fucks strangers just to _feel something,_ to get those shitty college experiences of waking up in beds he doesn’t recognise that he was so beautifully robbed of, travelling with Ryan from the tender age of fifteen. Their seventh anniversary of the day they met passes, and Ray spends the day locked away in a cell after getting into a fight with a shop keeper, threatening him with a knife when he caught Ray trying to shoplift a candy-bar.

Geoff bails him out with a sad smile and dark bags under his bright eyes, ruffling his hair and handing him his purple hoodie. "You’re coming home with me," he says. At Ray's look of protest, he adds, "No arguments, I think I need to keep an eye on you for a while."

Griffon looks after him well enough, but every time he looks at her, all he can think of is the times they had spent together, playing Xbox whilst they waited for Ryan and Geoff to return home from whatever shady deal they were working that night.

So, after a few weeks at Geoff’s he can't sit still in the memories anymore, and clears off briefly back Michael and Gavin’s place. After an ill-thought out hook up with Gavin and then Michael and then both of them, at once, Ray moves into his own place. He takes double the amount of strangers home, purely because he can. And maybe they can't give him the level of satisfaction that Ryan can. And maybe he’s okay with that.

Barely a few weeks after Ray’s twenty second birthday, Ryan returns to him.

He’s cut his hair again, and Ray doesn’t like how short it looks. His beard has grown out too, which is nice and looks soft to the touch, not that Ray allows himself to go that far. He stands, feeling shocked but looking bored as Ryan walks through his front door with his hands awkwardly in his pockets, and his eyes looking everywhere but Ray’s own.

He eventually speaks.

“So, I suppose you want to know why I left?”

"No, Ryan. I've done my time sitting around and feeling fucking sorry for myself, wondering why you fucking left. I don’t want to know why you left, not anymore. I just want to know why the fuck you bothered coming back." he almost says. Something stops him however, and instead, he says nothing.

Ryan says that he loves him, like it’s the most simple, easy explanation in the world. He loves Ray, he’s always loved Ray and he didn't want to hurt him. Ray is safer without him but Ryan is safer with him and blah blah fucking _blah_.

“Nah,” Ray replies, bitterly. "You don’t deserve the luxury of loving me anymore.”

Re-joining the crew goes surprisingly well, for Ryan. There’s the initial level of distrust and uncertainty that is expected, but the group gel back together quickly, and soon, it’s like Ryan never left. Only Ray acts differently towards him, avoiding all forms of contact, from teaming up with Ryan for a job to simple requests of _do you want a coffee?_ And _Have you played the new COD yet?_

Ray doesn’t really trust Ryan again until there's rope around his wrists and he’s hanging from the ceiling with a busted nose and a split lip, eyes barely able to open due to his borderline unconsciousness. He isn’t sure if he’s been hanging there for a few hours or a few days, and honestly, he doesn’t care. He’s done for, and he’d be happy to die right there.

He doesn’t have any information on a ‘RT Crew’, he doesn’t even know what that is, but he’ll pretend like he does if that means the guy keeping him will finally put his money where his mouth is and hurt Ray like he wants to be hurt, not with a punch but with a stab or a cut or a slash, anywhere, he’ll _beg_ for it.

But then, Ryan enters like some kind of hero from a shitty romance novel. Ray hangs from the ceiling and watches with a squinted gaze as Ryan takes out the guys in the room with ease and effortlessness with heat and blind fury in his eyes, before walking over to Ray and untying him.

Fuck, Ray wants to hate him for ending the pain, but Ryan cleans his wounds so tenderly until the bathwater is red with blood and brown with dirt, and the tiles of the wall are suddenly way too bright, and he just wants to cry because he’s honestly never felt this low in his entire life.

So he does. Ryan washes his hair silently as he sits in the bathtub with his knees to his chest, sobbing unabashedly. His face is still sore and it hurts as he presses his face to his legs, so he has to lean back and look at them. When did he get so skinny? He’d always been small, but had he always been able to see his hipbones like this? When was the last time he ate a full meal?

Ryan walks around the bath after rinsing Ray’s hair, and sits on the other side so he can face Ray. Gently, almost hesitantly, he reaches out and places his hand at the side of Ray’s face. Immediately, Ray leans into his touch, sighing through his sobs because _fuck_ it just feel so _right,_ Ryan is _home_ to him, and nothing is ever going to change that.

 _"You are loved, Ray"_ Ryan reminds him, standing in the doorway after laying Ray into bed "By all of us. The whole crew and plenty others"

"And," he adds, as an afterthought . "By  _nobody more than_ _me."_

And Ray is _so fucking tired_ of sleeping alone. Gavin is a notorious fidget and Michael stretches across most of the bed, and every other partner who’s skimmed his room haven’t stayed for very long. He’s tired of sleeping without any comfort beside him for the past nine months. And those nine months have felt more like nine years and he can’t face the thought of lying in his bed alone for another single night.

"Please. Lay with me?" he asks. Ryan looks hesitant but Ray doesn't want to spend another single second without Ryan by his side. "I missed you so fucking much and... would you just pleasr come in here and fucking lay down with me?"

The world still doesn’t stop spinning. The government doesn’t fall and the wars don’t stop. People still fight over the oil and the water and the last seat on the bus. Ryan’s dad still wants him to go to college and Ray’s dad still drinks himself to sleep. Gavin curls up in bed next to Michael even though he has his own room, and the only thing Geoff is addicted more to than alcohol and tattoos is the feeling of his wife in his arms. Jack doesn’t ask questions because he never has done, and he still isn’t even bitter of the fact that he will never get his pickup truck back.

But none of that matters, because Ryan is back by his side with their fingers linked and his lips at the back of Ray’s neck and then in his ear, whispering to him over and over that _he is loved_ , and _finally,_ Ray feels complete.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of this, so thanks for reading! Kudos&Comments are more than appreciated, and check out my other stuff for more like this! Also, I have a twitter @PAPERSK1N  
> Thanks


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